Conventionally, steam is generated from a primary heat source or waste heat, which can then be used for various industrial and commercial processes, such as fuel reforming processes, steam generation processes, and a myriad of other activities or processes that require process steam. The large physical size and capacity of commercially available devices for generating steam render them impractical for use in many modern, energy technologies requiring delivery of process steam in a compact and cost efficient manner.
Conventional devices that utilize heat from a waste gas stream to produce steam and/or hot water include heat recovery boilers that may or may not employ auxiliary heat, an example of which is the Donlee Technologies, U.S.A., boiler Series No. HR-125 through 750-G. The smallest of these devices has a relatively large overall length of about 5 feet, a width of about 4 feet, and a height of close to 5 feet. The dry weight of this smallest boiler device typically exceeds one ton. Other units in the series double or triple the height, width and length, and can exceed three tons. The large size and extreme weight of this conventional boiler is impractical for use with modem, relatively small fuel reformers and fuel cell systems that can have system sizes not much bigger than state-of-the-art steam generators, which are considerably smaller than the foregoing boilers.
Conventional heat exchangers can provide heated gas or liquid, but are not designed to produce steam for various commercial processes. For example, a conventional device is a spiral plate type heat exchanger manufactured by Spirec N. A., U.S.A., such as illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,705,618, 3,854,530 and 3,823,458, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. A drawback of the heat exchangers described in the foregoing patents is that they do not generate steam effectively.
There hence exists a need in the art to efficiently generate steam with a device suitable for use with modern processes, power systems and components. Hence, an improved modular device that can efficiently generate steam and perform several other functions would represent a major improvement in the art.